


[Meta] Season 5 Extra: Political Leanings

by wanderlustlover



Series: Hawaii Five-0 Season Five Meta [4]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Gen, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-19
Updated: 2015-03-19
Packaged: 2018-05-14 21:37:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5759743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderlustlover/pseuds/wanderlustlover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As requested a meta look at some political breakdowns.</p>
            </blockquote>





	[Meta] Season 5 Extra: Political Leanings

**Author's Note:**

> Backdated and imported from Tumblr circa March 2015.
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I have been staring at this question with the exact same answer and response since the very first time I saw it, which entirely starts first with — what in the world makes you think Steve is liberal at all?

In the order of your questions though —

**1\. Where do you see Steve’s political opinion, or tendency?**

Steve’s opinion about most things government, that isn’t the branches of the service, is woefully looked down upon. Everything from red tape to anyone sitting behind large, shiny wooden desks. We see this from the very first episode when he entirely derides Jameson just for showing up and manipulating him. As well as almost every other figure of political authority. 

Because of being the guy in the field, both bending and breaking the rules, and because there are whole US amendments that don’t apply to him in the field legally, Steve is not a fan of the squabbling, backbiting, money-needing and vast amounts of money-paying of politicians, and the secretive nature of organized politics. 

Being raised close to a detective and a flock of cops, due to one of my psuedo-adoptive parents, I’ve seen a lot of how the mind frame behind that works, too. And I would laugh if anyone told me those people were liberal. They, like Steve, have warily liberal leanings where it comes to personal/race/gender equality and expressions (not because he supported them, but more because they are obvious things in the Declaration and things he doesn’t really care about; a citizen is a citizen is a citizen), but everything else about them is massively the other side of the spectrum.

Steve would, absolutely, be for more weapons and more freedom of the armed forces (both foreign an domestic). For less dickering about in House and Senate before the military could act in the protection and offensive reaction toward anybody that attacked US citizens (both foreign and domestic). Steve would absolutely, like many cops and military people do, have a vast problem with the mass of bleeding heart liberals (and their, in their opinion, misplaced empathy for the enemy or a domestic terrorist/shooter/villain’s ‘story’ or ‘background’) between him and that ability to protect, defend, react. 

**2\. Do you think he allows himself to voice them publicly?**

It depends on your usage of the world “publicly” here.

To a random person on the street or politician he just met or person of authority he doesn’t know? No. We see that often in the show. Steve conveys a whole lot just by how he addresses these people and what he does in his interactions with people. Steve does not discuss these kinds of issues and ideas, and when they are brought up his usual first reaction is just to scoff at anyone on all of the sides, making it apparent “The System” and Everyone working in it is part of the problem. 

In a lot of ways, the answer would always be no, because the same way that I wrote a ‘citizen is a citizen is a citizen’ you get ‘a soldier is a soldier is a soldier.’ As Tennyson well put, ‘Their’s is not to reason why, theirs is but to do and die.’ Being a soldier is about getting in line and blending into absolutely everyone else. There is no self, there is no I. You are one with the mass, and in that no, I don’t think Steve would voice opinions contrary to mass-military opinion. 

(It’s part of why I spend a lot of time talking about why Steve would not come out of the closet even if he did fall in love with Danny, not even with a crowbar or a lot begging or crying or fighting, at any point where it could still effect both his Navy Career and Hawaii. 

The job is what Steve is, the end, not his proclivities or choices or heart.)

That said, I think he would discuss them at times, thought “discuss” is still too loose and liberal a word for it even. I think things would come out, both honest and not, while shooting the shit and being horribly off-color with other SEALs. I think Steve would at least carry a small part of a conversation with anyone in Five-0′s core who tried to have that with him. 

I don’t think he’d be very erudite about his opinions or beliefs, or especially even want to be, because really when is Steve about much of anything incredibly person and dovetailed with all of his background. Steve does(/did) a lot of things in his life that are redacted and confidential and not applicable under domestic laws. Things that would wholly change his opinions about systems and communication of opinions (when you can’t explain your reasons and history for why, under mandate, it gets harder to explain why you want something to be the way it is or changed in your country or why you rabidly despise it). 

**3\. And do you think the Steve in your head may be a bit more liberal than the Steve from the show?**

No, not at all. As someone who is a liberal, not even slightly. 

This is part of what I mean when people ask me about playing characters that are wholly different from your own viewpoints. Steve and I would disagree on at least half of our politics (not to mention how much of it I care about and he certainly never will). 

Playing Steve isn’t about my opinion of how Steve should be, it’s a reflection of who we see Steve being mixed in with almost three years of research into the SEALs, Cops, a life spent as military brat and someone near detectives all rolled into one. It’s what makes those people tick and is most important to them and what isn’t okay and what does and doesn’t matter at all. 

~*~ 

This isn’t even part of this —- But, I’m tagging haole-cop because she tauntingly told me while I was writing this, that Steve’s head was a rat-trap and totally not Danny’s. So, Laura, you should take these three questions and answer them for me, too.


End file.
